The Nepean Volume 15 Number 2 July 2020 NEPEAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC. 827 Melbourne Road, Sorrento Postal Address: P O Box 139 Sorrento Vic 3943 Phone: (03) 5984 0255 Email: [email protected] www.nepeanhistoricalsociety.asn.au Photo: During the COVID19 ‘lockdown’ Joy Kitch PRESIDENT’S REPORT “The patient caterpillar looks forward to the Spring” Chinese proverb, anon Dear Members As the Covid crisis goes from week to week with the end looking ever distant, we must consider our ongoing response. At this stage it has been decided that, in order to protect our volunteers and members, many of whom fall into the ‘high risk’ category, the Museum shall remain closed to the general public. All meetings have been suspended until further notice for the same reason. Having said that, we are now allowing a very limited number of volunteers to access the building for cleaning, maintenance or research works. If you have a need of information or anything else from the Museum, please get in touch and we will attempt to make mutually convenient arrangements. The good news is that ‘lockdown’ is providing the opportunity to reflect on, and research some of the operations at The Museum. Your Committee is determined to use this time to make improvements where needed. One operation that was proving popular just prior to lockdown was the ‘Be Connected’ project. A number of current and prospective members completed the course at The Museum and are now ‘more comfortable’ in the digital world. Thanks to Annette and Mark for running this program. Page !2 We hope to revive this when possible, so if you are interested in upskilling yourself on computers or tablets please get in touch. During this hiatus we continue to monitor local events, as reported below. Mostly, stay safe, take care and I look forward to seeing you in the Spring. Clive Smith Planning Report We encourage all members interested in local planning to look at the Mornington Peninsula Shire website. It is very user friendly. Just enter 'Advertised Planning Applications' and you can search by an address or scroll through all the current ones. A location map is provided, along with a button to enable you to read the full plans and documentation and the process for submitting objections. The 'History of Sorrento' Facebook site always has interesting comments and photos, too. Thanks to Jenny Nixon and her friends for all their contributions. Application P18/2059, 855-865 Melbourne Road, Sorrento is of interest, being for a Retirement Village above a basement car park. Amendments to this project, in response to concerns raised, are the retention of more trees, revised landscape design, increased setbacks, and the existing heritage listed house, to be restored, more easily seen between the four blocks of units (39 in all). The Continental Hotel has now been sold to the Trennery Consortium, whose workers were on site from June 12th. Our Society will invite a consortium representative to talk to members once the covid situation allows. Page !3 Our Museum Storage and Workspace Extension: The Nepean Conservation Group's newsletter announced it was asking the Shire to go to public consultation on any plans, and their President Ursula de Jong, at her request, attended the July 2 online meeting between our President Clive and Vice President Joy and Shire's Project Manager Athanasios Karabatsis, architect Steve Hofer, Local History Officer Sally Robins, Councillor Hugh Fraser, and Britney Beamish for Michael Scully, Manager of Infrastructure-Planning Community Facilities. There are no major changes to the design of 3/4 years ago. Stage One will still be the rear storage area with south side office/storage added. Next day, Joy had a follow-up meeting with Steve and Athanasios to inspect site and building. Point Nepean: Some work has been done on restoring the Superintendent's House at Police Point..Termites have now been found there, so back to Shire Budget for more funding. Thanks to Councillor Hugh Fraser for updating the Nepean Historical Society on this project. Workers were seen at the Foul Luggage Store on June 12th, repairing woodwork. It is closed until August. Joy Kitch, Vice-President Photo: Superintendent’s House, Cottage No. 6 Police Point Shire Park Point Nepean [NHS Collection] Page !4 Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia by Billy Griffiths As I was writing this review, the terrible news of Rio Tinto’s destruction of the ancient and significant rock shelters in Juukan Gorge was announced on May 26. These shelters in the Pilbara in W.A. held evidence of the antecedents of the current PKKP peoples living in this area more than 46,000 years ago. In the 1950s it was assumed that Aboriginal culture was static and only a couple of thousand years old and that the people were ‘primitive stone agers’ – remember how our school history text books summed them up in a page or two? The voices of Aboriginal people along with teams of archaeologists have now provided new understandings of the amazing complexities and richness of the cultures. Author Billy Griffiths is not an archaeologist. His perspective is as an outsider: ‘it is an assessment from the fringes’ gained by working (often as a camp cook ) on many dig sites across Australia from the Western Desert to carparks and shopping malls in our cities. ‘The evidence of ancient Australia is everywhere, a pulsing presence.’ 1 ‘Australia’s human history began over 60,000 years ago.’ This astonishing opening statement could not have been made before 2017 and the new dating technology used on the Arnhem Land escarpment. Griffiths tells the intriguing stories of the often eccentric and passionate people and their archaeological excavations in this country since the 1950s. He opens with the tragic but well planned suicide of archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe at Blackheath whose final note in October 1957 ended ‘Life ends best when one is strong and happy.’ Childe believed that above all archaeology was about people. 1 Griffiths B. Deep Time Dreaming Uncovering Ancient Australia Black Inc. 2018 p.3 Page !5 In 1956 John Mulvaney insisted that ‘context is everything.’ 2 Records must be kept of the strata and what was seen at each level. In the 1970s the sometimes controversial Rhys Jones popularised archaeology and coined the term ‘fire stick farming.’ And women entered the field. Isabel McBryde in the 1960s was one of the first to understand the importance of working with the traditional custodians, accepted now in many current collaborative investigations. As Griffiths records the stories he admits that ‘archaeology has a murky history in colonialism and social evolutionism.’ But he aims to ‘emphasize the transformative nature of the discipline.’ 3 The term ‘deep time’ was devised to describe the immense time scales that we must now try to comprehend. Archaelogist John Mulvaney estimated that a billion people may have lived on this continent. These resilient people survived geological epochs – the Pleistocene and Holocene - sea level rises, volcanoes erupting, land bridges drowned. They adapted and diversified to these changes. Through art and song and story they explained the country and colonised every region. Griffiths’ exploration of the study of indigenous art in his chapter ‘Marking Country’ is fascinating. ‘Art provides a sacred charter to the land,’ writes anthropologist Howard Morphy, ‘and producing art is one of the conditions of existence.’4 Since the invasion, art has played a powerful role in Aboriginal political and cultural expression. In 1963 the Yolngu people’s extraordinary bark petition was used to oppose the federal government’s leasing of their land at Yirrkala. It demanded 2 Ibid p.25 3 Ibid p.8 4 Ibid p.178 Page !6 recognition of Yolngu rights to their country by depicting the clan designs of the areas under threat. It is accepted as a legal document. Debates have raged over the interpretations of the millions of engravings and paintings found across Australia. Rock art research, consulting with local traditional owners and the contemporary Aboriginal art movement has enabled a deeper appreciation and offers ‘insights into the social worlds of the old masters who created them.’5 Over the last 60 years Australian archaeology has become a thriving multi-dimensional discipline. There is still conflict between those who approach the past from a critical, deep time perspective and those who view it as a living heritage, an affirmation of cultural identity. I highly recommend this book – it is beautifully written and records important and intriguing stories and ideas. Joy Kitch Nepean Historical Society acknowledges and pays respect to the Boon Wurrung/Bunurong people, the traditional custodians of these lands and waters. ________________________________________________________ MEMBERSHIP Welcome to the following new members to the Society, we look forward to meeting them at functions and meetings: Annie & Christopher Bones Nadia Carlin Derek Dubout Martin & Margie Tissot Denise & David Bristow Val Stieglbauer, Membership Secretary 5 Ibid p.199 Page !7 Too late for inclusion in the March 'Nepean', we were sad to learn of the death of Barbara Stephenson. A member and duty volunteer for many years, she worked in our Archives section on the photo and map collections, but her greatest contribution to our Society was in tracing family connections, as genealogy was a passion for her. Barbara Stephenson NHS Photograph Collection Another former member of our Society has died this year in Hobart. Barbara Hamilton Arnold was a teacher-librarian and author of Letters of G.P.Harris, Surveyor at the Collins Settlement at Sorrento. She retired to Tasmania in her last years, and became active in the Hobart Town (1804) First Settlers Association. VOLUNTEERS Thanks to our volunteers, those who are still working from home and those waiting for things to return to normal.